New Delhi: AAP leader Manish Sisodia, trusted lieutenant of party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, stepped out of jail after 17 months, after the Supreme Court on Friday granted him bail in corruption and money laundering cases linked to the Delhi excise policy case.
After an incarceration of 17 months, Manish Sisodia walked out of the Tihar jail giving a shot to the AAP in its arm amid a series for setbacks for the party.
This was the eighth attempt of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), after seven rejected pleas, to get its leader out of jail contending delayed trial. He was not granted interim bail ever since his arrest on February 26, 2023 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Sisodia, 52, was briefly allowed to meet his ailing wife last year after the court granted him permission.
The former deputy chief minister of Delhi has donned many hats and is believed to have contributed significantly to the rise of the AAP since its inception after the 2011 anti-corruption movement.
He has also been member of the Political Affairs Committee of AAP, its highest decision-making body.
Before signing off his cabinet responsibilities, Sisodia held 18 crucial portfolios, including education, finance, planning land and building, vigilance services, women and child development, as well as art, culture and languages, among others.
He had to resign from the Delhi cabinet on February 28, last year, two days after the CBI arrested him for alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy 2021-22.
The AAP, on its official website, credits the leader for “underscoring his pivotal role in shaping the multi-faceted governance landscape (of Delhi)” and “revolutionalising” the education system of Delhi government schools.
Coming from a humble background, Sisodia was born to a government school teacher’s family in Hapur district of Uttar Pradesh on January 5, 1972.
Away from a political background, he pursued journalism from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and went on to work as a journalist, hosting a programme called ‘Zero Hour’ for All India Radio in 1996 and later joined another media outlet as a news producer and reader.
But, as fate would have it, Manish Sisodia chanced upon Arvind Kejriwal in 2020 and the two embarked on a crusade against corruption. They are also credited for attempting to create a wave around Right To Information (RTI) in the country by spreading awareness about it among the masses.
Sisodia along with Kejriwal and other prominent faces of the party, including lawyer-cum-activist Prashant Bhushan and poet-turned politician Kumar Vishwas who have now cut ties with the AAP, grew to fame through the Jan Lokpal movement led by social activist Anna Hazar.
Ever since AAP was founded on November 26, 2012, Sisodia has acted as the party’s think tank charting out key policy decisions and plans.
He has emerged victorious three times in the Delhi assembly elections, securing the Patparganj constituency in East Delhi.
It is believed that Sisodia’s release from the jail will give a major boost to the AAP, which has faced several setbacks after its 2024 Lok Sabha elections defeat in Delhi.
The AAP currently is also in a tight spot in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, whose mayoral elections are delayed because chief minister Kejriwal is lodged in jail.
(With inputs from PTI)
